This watchdog blog, by journalist Norman Oder, offers analysis, commentary, and reportage about the $4.9B project to build the Barclays Center arena and 15-16 towers at a crucial site in Brooklyn. Dubbed Atlantic Yards by developer Forest City Ratner in 2003, it was rebranded Pacific Park Brooklyn in 2014 after the Chinese government-owned Greenland Group bought a 70% stake going forward. As of 2018, after the arena and four towers were built, Greenland will own 95% of future construction.

Each AY tower would dwarf (in sf) that 31-story public housing tower

I've already pointed out that, even though Frank Gehry's proposed "Miss Brooklyn" tower would be only 20 percent taller than the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, it would be three times as bulky.

But what about the tallest established residential building nearby, Atlantic Terminal Site 4B, the city's tallest public housing tower, at 31 stories and 310 feet. It's located across Atlantic Avenue at Carlton Avenue, opposite the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Vanderbilt Yard, the site for several proposed towers.

Atlantic Terminal Site 4B covers 252,500 square feet, which makes it smaller than any of the proposed 16 towers in the Atlantic Yards project, including the six that are shorter. That's a testament to the density proposed in the Atlantic Yards plan and a reminder that height provides only a partial sense of a building's impact.

On the Brian Lehrer Show in June, Daily News columnist Errol Louis, a stalwart supporter of the Atlantic Yards plan, pointed to the presence of the 31-story tower as a cue for high-rise development in the area.

I pointed out that it was anomalous and, if you calculate the number of apartments per acre, the Atlantic Yards plan would be twice as dense as the public housing tower.

And the proposed square footages, released by the Empire State Development Corporation as part of the General Project Plan, offer further evidence of "extreme density." (Click on the graphic to enlarge.)